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2 hours ago
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Let’s get one thing straight immediately: no documentary about Brexit should be this much of a hoot. The dread many felt when the referendum result came in – a fear that reactionary populism was on the rise and Britain was entering an era of managed decline – has only bloomed like mould in the intervening decade. Brexit was the source of much inadvertent comedy, of course, but to see it treated so irreverently en masse does leave a bit of a bad taste. Laughing at a YouTube compilation of politicians accidentally saying breakfast instead of Brexit? Fine. Chortling along with Nigel Farage as he reminisces about tensions between Dominic Cummings and Arron Banks? Tittering as Boris Johnson blathers about losing a tennis match to David Cameron during which the prime minister tried to secure his support for remain? No thanks.
Still, there is something extremely difficult to resist about Brexit: A Very British Civil War, a talking head-heavy chronicle of the period between the 2015 general election and the referendum itself. Rather than get bogged down in po-faced sincerity or hand-wringing about integrity (like the remain campaign!), it deals almost exclusively in attention-grabbing bombast (like the leave campaigns!). From the off we’re blasted with Brexit-flavoured juice. Vote Leave bosses “didn’t really want to win”, says Farage. Johnson’s position had “nothing to do with the EU,” says George Osborne. “It was Game of Thrones.” Johnson denies this, stifling a smile. “Everybody says I did this in order to be PM. I would have become prime minister anyway.”
By this point we are exactly two minutes in. Has this series just squandered its most blockbustery lines on its opening teaser? Not on your nelly. Helmed by the director Max Stern and the veteran documentarian Norma Percy, the two-parter rakes over the ashes of the referendum and unearths an endless parade of sparky anecdotes in the process. Percy is known for landing high-profile interviewees for her films – which in the past have covered the Northern Ireland peace process and Putin’s Russia – and most of the big players are here: Farage, Johnson, Cameron, Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn, Gordon Brown, Michael Gove (although Cummings is conspicuously absent). Even Peter Mandelson appears, with the disclaimer that he was interviewed before “the full extent of his links with Jeffrey Epstein emerged”. Why not cut him out then? Probably because the emphasis is on proving this is a party with one hell of a guest list. Hell being the operative word.
Brexit: A Very British Civil War mostly feels like a hilarious nightmare: a purple bus, a red bus, Bob Geldof arguing with a furious fisher on a boat, an elderly woman jumping at the chance to lick Boris’s ice-cream on the campaign trail. Interview-wise, it’s a circus of caricature and hyperbole. Johnson, clown-like as ever, seems determined to amuse. The then Labour leader is unintentionally funnier: “there’s no I in Corbyn” is his justification for refusing to personally endorse remain. Meanwhile, Farage is compared to Voldemort, the messiah and a vaudeville act. With reason; his increasingly camp drawl has never been more panto (dame not villain).
Despite prioritising bon mots and tales of vicious infighting, there’s still time for plenty of compelling insight into Westminster machinations. Osborne, Cameron, Brown and Corbyn all attempt to justify their fatally divergent perspectives on how to influence the electorate. Yet from the minute we witness the former M&S CEO Stuart Rose delivering a farcically bumbling speech to launch the government’s remain campaign, it looks like game over. For Cameron, the point of no return came later. Having threatened to “fuck” Johnson “up for ever” if he switched sides (per Johnson himself), the prime minister eventually received the message that his immensely popular Eton schoolmate had defected to leave. “It looks like out,” is how the communications director Craig Oliver recalls Cameron’s response.
Why did Johnson jump ship? His ex-wife Marina Wheeler, whose work as a lawyer had made her wary of the scope of EU influence, takes much of the credit for that. Johnson maintains his position was the result of weeks of soul-searching, although his remainer sister Rachel – who joined him for yet another tennis match during his final deliberation – doesn’t seem so sure.
Part two takes us up to the day after the referendum; Cameron’s resignation and an uncertain speech by Johnson. It ends with a sense of the chaos to come, cutting out with an abruptness that is clearly meant to be comical. (The butt of the joke? Presumably everyone in Britain.) Does this programme’s fixation on gossipy drama trivialise Brexit? Absolutely. Will you watch a more rollickingly fun documentary about politics this year? Absolutely not.
